General Enquiries

Anytime and Off-peak train tickets may be eligible for a refund. If you decide not to use your ticket to make all or part of your intended journey, then you can apply for a refund.

Advance tickets are non-refundable, unless the service was subject to cancellation by the Train Operating Company. You can amend an Advance ticket by buying a qualifying replacement ticket, which then allows you to apply for a refund of your original ticket - see amendments. If you have already booked your qualifying replacement tickets, please see how do I apply for a refund?

You can apply for a refund by returning your unused ticket(s) within 28 days of the ticket expiry date - see below for more details. Self-service ticket machine tickets must be collected from the machine and returned with the refund application. Please note that we will only accept refund applications for tickets purchased online from www.northernrailway.co.uk

Can I apply for a refund if my train was cancelled?

If a Train Operating Company (TOC) has cancelled the service you have booked and you choose not to travel, we will refund the cost of your ticket, once we have received your unused tickets and verified with the TOC that the service was cancelled. There will be no admin charges but please note that postal charges are not refundable.

How do I apply for a refund?

If you would like to apply for a refund of your ticket please contact our Customer Experience Team. You will need to provide your booking reference number, the circumstances of your refund application (including any re-booking details) and a contact telephone number - and please remember to enclose or scan your unused tickets. For refunds based on the re-booking of qualifying replacements for Advance tickets, please ensure that you provide clear details of your replacement booking when you return your original tickets for a refund, otherwise we will not be able to process your refund.

If you no longer have the original payment card that you used to book tickets, please make this clear on your refund form but do not include details of your replacement card. We will contact you by telephone when we process the refund and take your new card details at that time. This helps to keep your personal and financial information secure as there is no written record of your card details.

Please note that eligible refunds take up to six weeks to be processed. You will normally be required to pay an administration fee of £10 for the refund of part or all of your booking. Refunds based on Advance ticket amendments are charged differently - see the amendments section below.

The refund amount will normally take into account any use you have made of the ticket and in some circumstances, no refund will be paid.

Please ensure that your tickets are appropriately insured against loss in the post as we can only process refund applications when we receive the tickets. We recommend using Royal Mail Special Delivery™ Next Day service, with which you can insure your tickets to cover their face value. See www.royalmail.com/specialdelivery and choose Special Delivery™ Next Day, then click on prices.

Please note that tickets bought online from this website must be returned to Northern for a refund. Customers should not apply for refunds of tickets bought from this website at stations. In cases where our tickets are mistakenly accepted for refund by station staff, they have to be forwarded to our online sales centre and this can lead to delays. If your refund application is received by our online sales team after the expiry of your tickets, it will not be possible to process your refund.

We will notify you by email to confirm receipt of your refund application, and also to confirm whether your refund application has been approved by the central authority, or to indicate if there has been a delay. Once we have processed the repayment onto your card, it can take up to five days to appear on your account.

If you have any questions regarding an existing refund request or would like to know whether your tickets are valid for refund or amendment, please email our online refunds team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..